| -----Original Message----- | From: Bryan Henderson | | Has anyone considered breaking ethereal into manageable pieces? In a | number of ways, it is uncommonly big: | | - There are over a thousand files in the top level directory | of the source | tree (once built). I don't think I've ever seen the top | level directory | of anything this big.
I agree. How complex is it to update the CVS tree and the autoX files? | - The executable is 6 MB, which is fairly normal for a major system | component, but unusual for a diagnostic tool. I presume most | of that is | dissectors, and it's worth noting that any given instance of | ethereal is | unlikely to appreciate the vast majority of those. And to | add or modify a | dissector, you have to build and haul around that whole lump. | | - The man page (for ethereal and tethereal) is 60,000 lines. | Virtually | all of this is descriptions of fields. | | I think people would find ethereal easier to work with on lots of | different levels if 1) the source tree directory structure | were deepened a | little; 2) the executable loaded dissectors dynamically as | needed; and 3) | the filter descriptions were in a separate file, or even a whole tree. I have already an answer to point 3 in the form of a perl script: http://home.tiscali.be/olivier.biot/ethereal/ http://www.ethereal.com/lists/ethereal-dev/200303/msg00191.html I however did not generate NROFF output for man pages. | I'm willing to work on doing this, but I thought it might | have already | been discussed and found undesirable.
